Chris and I froze momentarily, now keenly aware of their assumption about our current outing. We let them look at a few bikes and show us what they liked and then asked them about whether they wanted a two wheeler or tricycle. We were met with another chorus, but this time chanting, "Big kid bikes!"
We slowly steered them away from the brightly coloured, brand name, highly expensive, Tigger and Barbie bikes and made our way back towards the exercise equipment we had actually come to check out. We told them that there was still snow on the ground, but we would look into getting them bikes for this spring. They were, quite thankfully, very good sports about the fact that we were in search of exercise equipment for mom and dad and not "the littles".
When we got home, Chris and I looked at our budget, some flyers and the likelihood of these bikes lasting any more than two summers and decided we better get moving. I became one of those people who posts on Facebook looking for information that I could easily Google, "Where can I get some cheap bikes for my kids?"
Molly's "new" bike...with seat on the back for dolls.
Thankfully people were generous with their suggestions and my sister offered up a bike that my niece had outgrown for Molly. As both kids kept reminding us, "It's spring, so when do we get our bikes?" we promised them that part of our Easter weekend would involve riding their new bikes in a little used parking lot near my parents house. The thought of Jack on the road puts a level of fear and stress in my heart that I didn't think was possible. For several weeks, we stalked bike listings online, emailed and visited used bike stores in our area and came up empty handed. Using bike shopping as a motivation (bribe) for Jack to behave we began to worry that 1) there would be some sort of assumption that we didn't have a bike because he was naughty 2) that we'd break our budget on a bike and 3) that Easter would involve all cousins on bikes while we tried to convince Molly the virtues of turn taking on her brand new bike for Jack - not very likely.
A couple of days ago I came across a flyer for a brand new red 14" bike with training wheels that was in our price range. We rushed out to the store, yet again with the kids in tow. After twenty minutes of waiting and a trip for each child to one of the most disgusting public washrooms I've been in for a while, I managed to flag down a store employee to find the bike, which was not on the floor of the store. A few minutes later he returned, apologetically, as they'd changed the colour of the bike this year from red to orange. Jack rounded the corner and screamed, "MY TIGGER BIKE!" at the top of his lungs and jumped on the bike. Clearly the change in paint colour was not an issue.
Tonight I'm going to clock my first shift spring training on our brand new elliptical...something tells me I'm going to be running alongside little bikes all summer long.
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